<quote>I am trying not to wander too far off topic here.</quote>We might, of course, note that this thread is *supposed* to be about the Hindu effort to teach their doctrine as science. Carol's bible-babble is irrelevant. I guess Landa doesn't have the One True Version of Hindu texts, so Carol feels the need to change the subject to a book she CAN sell.

I have the distinct impression that Carol has no interest whatsoever in any religious text other than the Old Testament. So it's not too surprising she should veer off topic if we're discussing the beliefs of Hindus.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

You pose some excellent questions, some of which you can find answers to in previous postings on this thread.

To elaborate a bit further, you need to realize that Hebrew is a beautiful language (I speak from experience with fluency in 7 languages) in which words have multiple meanings, borrowed meanings and convergent meanings. Some single words in Hebrew require 8 or 9 words in English to be satisfactorally translated.

The Hebrew AUDUM (I transliterate on purpose so you don't automatically think "Adam", the name of an individual, when you see that word) has three different meanings throughout the Bible and even in modern Hebrew. The word can be used to mean (1) human, humanity or humankind, as a species, (2) man, as opposed to female, and (3) Adam, the name of any individual by the name. In Genesis the word is employed in all three ways, depending on the context. It is actually easy to ascertain which meaning is intended from the context.

In verses 26 and 27 of chapter one, quoted above, the context makes it absolutely clear that AUDUM there refers to "human". There can be no reasonable doubt about it.

So why are some popular English translations wrong? For a combination of reasons. Ignorance, preconceived notions, mischief making, sloppiness, and agendas to be acted upon.

For people who don't like the (oh so lenient) moderation of PT please remember that the Antievolution.org discussion board allows the general public to open threads of their own. And this on someone else's dime. Carol you are only as welcome here as you allow yourself to be.

--------------"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."-John F. Kennedy

Oh, come on. You know Carol. If you want to know what she thinks, buy the book. You know the one. The one, single, holy, divinely inspired, has no errors, doesn't conflict with science, says the sun went round the earth backward, "kill every man, woman, child, and animal on that land because I'm giving it to my chosen people", translated by a fella she just happens to be doing business for book.

--------------Lou FCD is still in school, so we should only count him as a baby biologist. -carlsonjok -deprecatedI think I might love you. Don't tell Deadman -Wolfhound

"I am still a bit angry, both with myself and the ID movement, because I originally fell for their hoax."

I would suggest that you not be too hard on yourself there.

First, the ID people really believe in ID. I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they did not set out to deceive anyone.

Second, while their theory has no scientific basis, it could very well be vaild in the sense that it happened that way. In other words, the universe and life could very well be intelligently designed, whether we can substantiate that assertion or not. There is nothing in science that contradicts ID.

Third, scientific work almost always involves "wasting" time on theories that turn out to be wrong, going down blind alleys and chasing dead ends, sometimes for years (even decades). That is the nature of the beast. So you had a theory and then reconsidered. So what? It's all in a days work of a scientist.

My exposure to Hinduism and Buddhism has not benefited from the "inside sources" you have had, but from symposia conducted by westernized "experts" that always left me with the feeling that my grasp is less than complete.

I now wonder why that committee of rabbis that went to India to investigate Hinduism came back with the conclusion that it constitutes idol worship in the biblical sense, which implies that the adherents view their gods as having independent power to act. Perhaps they interviewed only members of those sects you speak of that do believe this. In that case they did a shoddy job.

I am amazed my last post was not bounced before you got a chance to see it.

<quote>My exposure to Hinduism and Buddhism has not benefited from the â€śinside sourcesâ€ť you have had, but from symposia conducted by westernized â€śexpertsâ€ť that always left me with the feeling that my grasp is less than complete.</quote>

Learning about a thing by hearing what others say about that thing, is never a good thing.

Sort of like learning about Judaism by asking the Klan about it.

<quote>I now wonder why that committee of rabbis that went to India to investigate Hinduism came back with the conclusion that it constitutes idol worship in the biblical sense, </quote>

Well, what the #### did anyone EXPECT they would do --- declare that Judaism and Hinduism were wonderfully compatible with each other?

<quote>which implies that the adherents view their gods as having independent power to act. Perhaps they interviewed only members of those sects you speak of that do believe this.</quote>

Pure statistics makes that exceedingly unlikely.

<quote>In that case they did a shoddy job.</quote>

They saw what they wanted to see. Religions have a funny way of doing that. (shrug)

What is the point of displaying responses to posts that have been bounced? How is anyone reading these responses supposed to put them in context, other than going back forth between here and the bathroom wall? This is ridiculous!

--------------"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."-John F. Kennedy

A team of scientists led by James M. Clark, Ronald B. Weintraub Associate Professor of Biology at The George Washington University, and Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing, have discovered a new genus and species of dinosaur that is the oldest known and most primitive tyrannosauroid.

<I>Your being so ready and willing to dispose of certain questions, such as â€śwhy are we hereâ€ť by just declaring â€śwe do not knowâ€ť and merrily walk away from the issue, in contrast to other questions where theories are called upon to explain phenomena, betrays the artifical restriction on science I spoke of.

If Darwin would have applied the same attitude to the issue of the origin of the species, he would have just declared â€śthey are just hereâ€ť and â€śwe do not knowâ€ť and moved on to other things. The point of science is not to walk away from issues by shrugging our shoulders and declaring that we just do not know.

So why the selective application of this approach on the part the scientific community? I claim it is due to the big elephant lurking behind certain issues, a monster many prefer not to face.</I>

That's exactly correct and was the whole point of Lynn Margulis hard line against "neodarwinians". You don't call your peers "neodarwinian bullies" as the honered guest speaker at the last evoloutionary conference simply because you're having a normal dispute with them. Lynn's was a direct shot at the form of fanaticism vs antifanaticism that leads to the willful denial of evidence via their own brand of how they are willing to interpret evidence.

Notice that PvM has now resorted to appeals to comparitively lame authority, trying to dig up lame dirt, rather than to admit that I've made a single valid point, which I can seriously back-up with hard physics that he can't begin to understand, so he avoids it like the plague.

This is highly common to the whole neodarwinistic mentality that causes the judge in dover to admit that there may be a scientific point that IDists are not motivated to make. It's the same mentality that causes them to contuously and falsely leap to assume and call me, an atheist, a creationist.

This cannot happen without a whole bunch of pre-conceived prejudice behind it, because I never argue for ID, nor for supernatural entities. Einstein and others have had a very similar purposefullly structured worldview as mine from the physics of relativity as applied to the structuring of the observed universe without uncertainty. It is not at all out of the realm of science, but the willful denial of evidence for it is highly prevelant within the evobiolgy community.

I interpret from the physics what Leonard Susskind sees as a scientist when he says that "the appearance of design is undeniable"... the difference being that I know that it can't be about ID if the landscape fails.

It's a valid scientific interpretation, whether PvM or anybody else here wants to admit it, or not, and so I don't really care what happens here, since they continue to typically ignore the valid points, while attacking only perceived weaknesses.

[...]A multi-center team has deposited the draft genome sequence of the rhesus macaque monkey into free public databases for use by the worldwide research community, [...]Overall, the rhesus genome shares about 92 to 95 percent of its sequence with the human (Homo sapiens) and more than 98 percent with the chimpanzee.

If the campaign to establish the compatibility of science and religion is to be predicated on the idea that Genesis is meant to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically, it will achieve pitifully little and certainly not help the cause of science. Such an approach is rightly viewed by millions as based on the evisceration of the words of the Bible of any real meaning and will be rejected. So there is no reason for science to support such an approach.

What the scientific community ought to be supporting is establishing the compatibility of science and religion EVEN IF THE BIBLE IS INTERPRETED LITERALLY. As I have reported here on many occasions, such an approach has successfully been accomplished by various recent scholars, such as Judah Landa's popular IN THE BEGINNING OF, among others.

Now, that is an approach that can and will actually make a difference.

By the way, Andy H (i.e. Larry and several other aliases). Why, given your <i>obvious</i> concern over ethical issues, do you continue to violate the ethics of the PT board and dishonestly post as several people?

Don't hypocrisy and lying bother you?

Don't you realize that such behavior means that no one is likely to take <i>anything</i> you say seriously?

I truly am curious why you exhibit this peculiar and dishonest behavior.

There's an ikonBoard bug that hoses topics once a very long text message is entered. I've switched DB managers this morning so that I have a chance to intervene via the DB interface, but to restore the currently missing messages would take more work than I can budget time for at the moment.

If the campaign to establish the compatibility of science and religion is to be predicated on the idea that Genesis is meant to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically, it will achieve pitifully little and certainly not help the cause of science. Such an approach is rightly viewed by millions as based on the evisceration of the words of the Bible of any real meaning and will be rejected. So there is no reason for science to support such an approach.

I thought the campaign was about establishing the compatibility of religion and reality - for the benefit of religion.

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Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,18:37)

Many Jews were in comfortable oblivion about Hitler ... until it was too late.Many scientists will persist in comfortable oblivion about their Creator ... until it is too late.